Duncan, the former Ontario finance minister, and bridge authority president and CEO Michael Cautillo have already met informally with Moroun and his son Matthew.

“We had two good meetings,” Duncan said. “I recommended to the government of Canada that it’s worth further discussions.”

Duncan says the meetings were prompted by an email from Matthew Moroun to the Toronto Star in February. Moroun stated that his family and the government have been fighting for a decade “unproductively” and they’re “both wrong,” that he’s “inspired” by new Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and that the border could be a “shining example of efficiency and co-operation.”

Duncan was dispatched to find out “how serious they are,” as he put it.

“To the extent we can manage the risks and remove impediments, at a minimum we have to look at what the alternatives are,” he said.

It’s a significant recommendation by a senior, respected Liberal. The Morouns have fought ruthlessly on every front for 15 years to preserve their monopoly.

The bridge company did not respond to requests for comment.

Negotiations would require approval from the highest levels of government, presumably including treasury board. That hasn’t happened yet.

But some people think buying the bridge could solve a truckload of troubles.

It would mean that one of Canada’s most important international border crossings would be owned by the government, not some guy who has ignored governments, flouted the law and given millions of dollars in political donations to key decision-makers.

Twenty-five per cent of the $670 billion a year in trade between Canada and the U.S., our biggest trading partner, goes through Windsor and Detroit, much of it across the Ambassador Bridge.

One of the reasons for the new bridge is redundancy: if something shuts down one crossing, it won’t shut down our economy.

“So the big question, among others,” Duncan said, “becomes who should own the Ambassador Bridge? In my view it makes sense to look closely at whether or not an important border crossing such as the Ambassador Bridge should be in private or public hands.”

If Canada owned that bridge, the border would be seamless, with all six crossings between Windsor and Sarnia operating in concert.

The Ambassador Bridge is seen in west Windsor on April 20, 2016. Abandoned homes remain on Indian Road and several other west-end streets near the bridge.Jason Kryk /
Windsor Star

If Canada owned that bridge, we could also ensure that it’s safe. Windsor had to close three streets last fall when chunks of concrete rained down from the bridge.

“There are significant issues, including the concrete that has fallen from the platform on the Canadian side, that have to be addressed,” Duncan said.

If Canada owned the bridge, we could salvage Indian Road and the surrounding neighbourhood, where the Morouns bought and left to rot more than 100 houses they wanted for a new twin span.

If Canada owned the bridge, governments wouldn’t have to spend millions of taxpayers’ dollars defending themselves from the Morouns’ lawsuits.

And we could build the new bridge.

The Morouns own 20 of 30 needed properties that Duncan describes as potentially “adverse,” including key properties like part of the 42-acre Central Transport truck terminal near where the new bridge would touch down in Detroit. Moroun bought it in 2010 because of the location, no doubt.

The government hasn’t made an offer for the property yet, but there’s concern Moroun will not only fight expropriation but demand years to move. This could be about more than money. It could be about winning, pride — even spite. This is a guy who spent a night in jail before finally obeying a government and court order.

“We are prepared to go all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States to get the property we need,” Duncan said.

But the government isn’t sure how long the Morouns could drag this out. Every year is $60 million in toll revenue and millions more in gas and duty-free sales for them.

That explains the latest possible interest in buying the Ambassador Bridge: to get rid of Moroun.

“If we can remove, at a reasonable price, any obstacle to building the (Gordie Howe bridge) and improving the overall functioning of the Windsor-Detroit border crossing, I think we have an obligation to look carefully at that,” Duncan said.

Truck ferry owner Gregg Ward thinks Canada should say “hell no” to buying the Ambassador Bridge to ensure the new crossing can be built sooner rather than later.

“Instead,” he said, “what there needs to be is a clear accounting of who’s standing in the way of this project and the political power plays.”

What’s a “reasonable price?” Duncan says he doesn’t know. Moroun is said to have demanded $3 billion in the past. The bridge is 87 years old and needs significant repairs.

And would a deal include the Morouns’ duty-free store, which they operate with the University of Windsor, which gets $250,000 a year from it? Their gas pumps? Their property on Indian Road? The property for the new bridge?

Would Moroun demand something from the new bridge?

“You can just hear the gears turning,” said Ward.

Who’s got what leverage? It’s estimated the Ambassador Bridge, which still doesn’t have the needed permits to twin its span, will lose 75 per cent of its revenue when the new one, where preliminary work has already started, opens. But the new one can’t be built until the government has the land.

Expropriation inevitably costs more than market price. But “it’s not a bottomless pit of money,” said Duncan. And a potential deal would have to be approved by cabinet and would be scrutinized by parliament and the auditor general. The money would ultimately be paid by tolls, but you can’t charge whatever you want.

Are the Morouns even serious about selling? Or is this another delay to preserve the monopoly and rake in money until 2018, when Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette, who lists the Morouns as top campaign donors and is rumoured to oppose the new bridge, is expected to run for governor?

No one who knows the Morouns believed Matthew Moroun’s email. Yet they’ve lost every major legal challenge to the new bridge. Matthew isn’t believed to be as intransigent as his father. But his father, now 89, is believed to still be in control.

Then there’s everything we don’t know, despite claims of transparency. The bridge authority won’t even say how many key needed properties have received offers.

We do know the new bridge won’t be built by 2020. Do the math. Eighteen months from RFP to construction. Forty-two months for construction. That’s closer to 2022.

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